Student arrested for underage drinking among minimal GGP reports

One student was arrested and another was reported for underage drinking during last week’s Grizzly Grand Prix bike race festivities.

Security Director Steve Leonard said he attributes the low number of incident reports to the weather during the weekend that caused the bike race to be canceled early Saturday morning. It rained, rather torrentially, for most of Friday and Saturday.

“It lessens how many people will be out and be in view of security staff or police officers who might be patrolling,” he said.

The major event of the week happened at approximately 11 p.m. on the Tuesday before GGP when a campus security officer called the Franklin Police Department for help with a male student who was intoxicated, yelling at people in his dorm and other buildings and was not cooperating with the security officers on duty.

“[The student] was given several warnings to stay in his room and sleep off the alcohol, but he was apparently unwilling to do this and continued to cause problems,” the police report reads.

The Franklin officer who spoke with the student in his Hoover Hall dorm room said it was evident the student had consumed “copious amounts” of alcohol and that he admitted to being drunk.

During the course of the officer’s conversation with the student, the officer noted the student wasn’t feeling well and that his condition was deteriorating. The officer requested an ambulance to respond and transport the student to Johnson Memorial Hospital for evaluation.

But just 45 minutes later, police were called to the dorm again after reports that the student returned from the hospital and continued to cause problems for other Hoover residences.

“As I arrived and walked up the stairs to return to his room, I observed the discharge papers from Johnson Memorial Hospital shredded and strewn about the top of the stairs,” the report reads. “[The student] again refused to stay in his room when asked to by security and was roaming the halls, while yelling, in an effort to locate his cell phone.”

This time, the student was handcuffed and taken to the Johnson County Jail for minor consumption of alcohol. His blood alcohol level registered .192 percent, nearly 2.5 times the legal limit.

The student is going through both the county’s legal and the college’s judicial process for the incident.

Additionally, around 11:30 p.m. on Saturday night of GGP weekend, a student was written up for underage possession and consumption of alcohol. This incident was handled solely on campus and is going through the college’s judicial process.

Campus security and residence life department bring in additional staff in preparation for the busier weekend each year to have more people ready to respond to incidents like this on campus — even if there are just a few.

“After I spoke with the officers that worked over the weekend, they really characterized it as a quiet weekend — not quiet for a Grand Prix weekend, just quiet in general,” Leonard said. “They all just said they didn’t see very many students, and I think probably due to the weather. No one was going to be outside in that pouring rain. But on the same token, we didn’t get a lot of calls into residence halls or on-campus homes to address behavior either.”

Last year, eight campus security reports were filed over GGP week, including reports of theft, underage drinking, marijuana use and a domestic disturbance involving alcohol.

In 2015, 33 individual judicial reports were filed including instances of alcohol, drugs, harassment and general violations of campus policy. That weekend, police arrested a campus visitor for underage drinking and another visitor was transported to the hospital for overconsumption of alcohol.

Ashley Shuler is the executive editor of The Franklin. She has held various multimedia journalism and public relations internships, including positions at Indianapolis Monthly, The Children's Museum of Indianapolis and Dittoe Public Relations.
When she isn't staying up late to edit stories, Ashley spends her time boutique shopping and drinking as much vanilla Coke as possible.
This is Ashley's third year in a leadership role and her fourth year on The Franklin staff. She previously held positions as web editor and news editor.

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